Kitchen

[Net52]

$12.50 a week sounds great! Unfortunatly the average annual income in 1947 per the census bureau was $3,000. Which is $57.69 per week. Not much left for all other expenses, kind of like 2024.

[Zhills]

Looks like she gathered $12.50 worth of groceries.....

Not really a weeks supply of groceries to feed a family to me!

[AuntMame]

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@Net52 wrote:

$12.50 a week sounds great! Unfortunatly the average annual income in 1947 per the census bureau was $3,000. Which is $57.69 per week. Not much left for all other expenses, kind of like 2024.

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I read that from WWII and into 1970s the average U.S. household spent 40 percent of their weekly take-home pay on groceries. Today it's considerably less, more like 28 percent, probably due to increased mass-production of food.  

What's interesting about this photo is that there's so little fresh fruit and other produce. There's celery, lettuce and what looks like a single onion. Sadly, that was typical for an urban household in the post-war years. 

[Somertime]

@Desert Lily Thanks, I went to correct it but somehow it disappeared and I did not delete it.

[Othereeeen]

@Kachina624 

If there was an article attached...she was probably complaining that the same amount of food would have cost 7.00 in 1939 ....O the Inflation!!!!

Things don't go backwards unfortunately...but SOME prices do come way down...but they are anecdotal in nature...most things go up.

Here are a few I can think of:

Televisions...... get a 55" smart  HDTV under 250 at Walmart...I paid 3200.(YIKES!!!) at Best Buy( can't beleive that figure) for a 55" Projection TV in 2001 for my new home.

It was emornous. When it finally died in 2019 a friend and I took it apart in the driveway with a saw and a hammer....The whole thing was made of a cheap wooden frame covered with black fabric over the projection device and speakers.

I used the screen and it's protective cover on a cold frame for my early plants. We burned up everything but the projection device which was roughly the size of a 5 gallon bucket. That went to the electronics dump.

I remember it BARELY fit thru the door to roll it out of the house!!!

Long distance phone call charges.....FREE today...remember those usurious per minute charges?!?!?!? Now you can call anywhere and yak for free....

Computers and laptops and digital cameras....all things sold on QVC over the years that have come WAAAAAAYYYYY down in price....

[shoesnbags]

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@loriqvc wrote:

First impression: It's strange that they made her put all of that food—especially the produce—on the floor (and on a carpet, no less). It certainly would have fit on a dining table for the photo.

Second impression: Although it's not clear enough to see what all the items are, it looks like she has three loaves of bread for two adults and two small children for one week. They must really like sandwiches! And two boxes of salt for one week? Plus I'm not sure if I want to know what is in those cans near what appears to be wrapped meat if they've organized food by category... 

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@loriqvc 

Looking at the cans to the left of the wrapped meat, the first thing that came to mind for the small can was Vienna Sausages.  I was born in 1949, and I remember those from my childhood.  But I can't figure out if that's one larger can or two stacked cans to the left of the small can.  If it's two stacked cans, it could be tuna.  Tuna casserole, anyone?